--- title: The town and directions — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The town and directions», a lesson of the french course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Getting around a French town needs only a handful of words: tout droit (straight on), à gauche (left), à droite (right), and the names of the shops --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/) / The town and directions # The town and directions Lesson 22 of the french course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/french/22-the-town-and-directions/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/0/) — Getting around a French town needs only a handful of words: tout droit (straight on), à gauche (left), à droite (right), and the names of the shops and buildings you are looking for. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/1/) — Be careful with two that sound alike: tout droit, "too DRWA", means straight on, while à droite, "a DRWAT", ends with a t sound and means on the right. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/2/) — Picture yourself lost in a little town in Normandy: you ask "Où est la poste ?", a lady says "Tout droit, puis la deuxième rue à droite, à côté de l'église", and you count the streets on your fingers as you walk. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/3/) — Some signs look English but trick you: a librairie sells books, the hôtel de ville is the town hall, and sortie over a door means the way out. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/4/) — French joins à and le into au, so you go au parc, but à la piscine and à l'école stay apart. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/6/) — English borrowed gauche to mean clumsy and adroit (from à droit) to mean skilful. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/7/) — La boulangerie is the bakery; the baker is le boulanger or la boulangère, and many French people buy fresh bread every day. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/9/) — L'hôtel de ville is the town hall in bigger towns; in smaller towns it is called la mairie. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/10/) — Neither is a hotel. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/11/) — La librairie is a bookshop where you buy books; la bibliothèque is the library where you borrow them. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/12/) — A French pharmacie is marked by a green cross, often lit up. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/13/) — C'est loin ? means "Is it far?"; loin is far and près is near. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/15/) — Short answers are normal in talk: "Tu vas où ?" - "À la piscine !" - "Moi aussi !" (Me too!) - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/16/) — Order words: premier or première (1st), deuxième (2nd), troisième (3rd); most end in -ième. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/17/) — La poste is the post office and l'église is the church; in many villages they stand round the main square with the mairie and the bakery. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/22-the-town-and-directions/18/) — Door signs: entrée (way in), sortie (way out), poussez (push), tirez (pull), ouvert (open), fermé (closed). - ← previous: [My house and my home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/21-my-house-and-my-home/) - next →: [Hobbies and sport](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/23-hobbies-and-sport/) - ↑ back to [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/)